On Fri, 26 May 2006 22:50:58 +1000 b sharp
<bsharporflat at hotmail.com> wrote:
>Thalassocrat I think it is simpler than all that. F, B and O move
>only
>backward in time, virtually without exception (which marks them as
>pawns, in
>Tzadkiel's chess analogy).
>>Their first meeting with Severian is on Tzadkiel's ship. They go
>back in
>time to meet him as Autarch a number of times, they go back to
>meet him in
>Baldander's castle, then go back to watch him in Eschatology and
>Genesis,
>then go back to find him as Apu Punchau. They (F and B anyway)
>know the
>least on Tzadkiel's ship and they know the most in Apu Punchau's
>time.
No, it doesn't work like that. As I pointed out, they know about
the E&G incident at the time they meet Sev at Baldanders' castle.
Sword Ch33, Barbatus to Dr Talos: "We could have killed your
creator easily enough that night, as you know. We burned him only
enough to turn aside his charges." And as I also pointed out, at
this stage they know *both* the past (this incident) and the future
(dealings with Sev when he is Autarch). Any solution to the
conundrum isn't going to be simple.
>I take this to mean, in our current context, that if Wolfe didn't
>use a
>"deus ex machina" storyteller's trick (Ossipago's role) then he
>would have
>had to leave out the "backwards in time" nature of Hierodules.
>And the
>story would have been worse. And he is, first and foremost, a
>storyteller.
I really don't see the relevance of the well-known Roger Rabbit
quote to the Hierodule/time issue, sorry, and I can't really see
the putative role of Ossipago as a "deus ex machina" device, as the
term is usually understood.
>>There is a reference to using "deus ex machina" (he only alludes
>to this
>phrase) tricks in the text of BotNS. Something like: "only the
>worst
>playwrights use them, but it is better to use them than have the
>play end
>badly". I've been looking for it but for the life of me I can't
>find it
>again. Help somebody! Roy? Anybody!!!!
It's aquastor-Malrubius to Sev, at the end of botNS.